Sexiest TV

Just this month, Netflix put out a statement claiming that cinema-going was dead, and more people were staying at home as their method of choice to watch movies. Then, Sinners came out and proved them wrong. (also: a 20 year old movie being re-released in theatres the same week also proved them wrong.) It’s a testament to the ability that Ryan Coogler, one of the best directors currently working, has to captivate audiences at all levels – a crowd-pleasing vampire horror that remembers vampires are supposed to be sexy AND scary, and draws as much from black music history as it does the history of vampires to tell a captivating tale that essentially boils down to not trusting the Irish and how the Klu Klux Klan are worse than Vampires.

Michael B. Jordan plays a dual pair of brothers – Smoke and Stack – who have just got out of Chicago and working for the mob. They return to the Mississippi Delta where they hope to create a new juke joint out in the open – buying a barn from a white landlord and bringing in Irish and Italian whisky. With little left to turn they need to cut a deal to survive stealing from both sides of the mob – and the looming threat of the Klan. Enter Jack O’Connell’s charming but mysterious singer Remmick, a man with an Irish brood – manipulative and far more than he appears.

Remmick of course is a vampire, and soon, on opening night, the bodies begin to go missing fast and furious. The stand-off and tension escalates. It’s very Rio Bravo, the callbacks to westerns are as much and as common as they are vampire movie history – the scene where Remmick stumbles across the klan couple hiding from the Mexicans hunting him at the beginning of the film is pure Near Dark to the point where it’s all but missing a Tangerine Dream soundtrack, but music is by far the most important thing about this film because it is for all intents and purposes – a musical. It comes in the form of newcomer Miles Caton, a deep, rich blues singer – capable of wielding a guitair and playing music so transformative it can blend through time itself – in one of the most novel uses of music a film has ever shown. Make no mistake about it – the history of blues is at the forefront here and there’s a scene where Caton’s Sammie plays to a bar and all of time and space happens at once. It’s powerful, transporting and one of the scenes of the decade so far in one of the movies of the decade; the cinematography alone, the location shooting, the sheer talent of the actors involved – it’s a masterclass in cinematography of the grandest scale. Autumn Durald Arkapaw is fantastic as Coogler’s DOP – creating a vision of 30s Mississippi that feels raw and authentic.

Much of Sinners is a slow burn – it spends time getting to know the characters and the place and time they exist in before brutally butchering them all one-by-one. We care about Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary, a white-passing woman who fell in love with Stack and resents him for abandoning her. We care about Delroy Lindo’s Delta Slim, a veteran pianist. Pearline’s supposedly married singer starts a relationship with Sammie and the two get on spectacularly well – the chemistry between him and Jayme Lawson’s Pearline is off-the-charts. There’s also Wummi Mosaku’s Annie – Smoke’s estranged wife with knowledge of the supernatural – and these characters all have interwoven relationships that make you care about each other on top of that. Sammie is looking for an escape – from his father Jedediah, who warns him that the blues is supernatural – and as he’s about to find out, he’s right. Rennick’s vampires are in town.

The night unfolds is one of carnage and beauty. It’s a spirit of both the past and the present operating as one. The shooting on 70mm makes it look like one of the most gorgeous films that ever existed, intoxicating in its seductive beauty, and the soundtrack utilises Irish folk songs like Rocky Road to Dublin in a version that feels appropriately sinister, barnstormingly so and the scene in which it is deployed sends chills down your spine – along with the repeated use of Pick Poor Robin Clean.

It’s a movie that makes these characters feel alive and thriving in the world – the dual roles of Smoke and Stack different enough beyond their different colour caps to let Jordan have his acting talent lay bear on the screen – Smoke is a Tommy Shelby-type suave character whereas Stack is his brother, Arthur, much more violent – and there are shades of Peaky Blinders in the early set-up for the episode that taps into gangland culture. I appreciate that the Asian characters – couple Grace and Bo Chow, played by Li Jun Li and Yao respectively, not just have their own key parts in the film but also have southern accents rather than non-American, when they’ve lived there part of their lives if not all of them. Sinners strives for authenticity and is off their -the-charts insane with its dedication to its craft.

And then comes the final shootout, which is appropriately bonkers, and the mid-credits scene that acts as a real game-changer for proceedings. It shakes the whole film on its head and upends tradition in a way that hasn’t been felt since. I love how Sinners navigates the vampire weaknesses (“they can’t come in unless you invite them”) – and deploys them to only make them more terrifying. It’s such a triumph of Coogler that makes it a mass success in the way that feels like a culmination of his work on Black Panther, Creed and Fruitvale Station. It’d only feel reductive for him to go back to Marvel just as he’s reached blank cheque status. This is the film that cements what has already happened – he’s Nolan-Tarantino tier in the A-Listers of Hollywood fame.

var authorcode=’MJ’;